I was trapped in total darkness, with no line to the outside world and nothing to write about.

The
great snowstorm knocked the power from my apartment and my phone can't pick up
a signal. The pressure of not having a column to write is starting to bear down
on me, but not knowing what is going on in the world of
sports is what really has me feeling jumpy.

Has
Kobe Bryant finally hired a hit man to take out Dwight Howard? Did Curt
Schilling reveal who told him to take PEDs? What do the latest mock drafts say
about the Patriots?

I
decide I have to head out, to find the glow of a TV and an area with some
cell reception, if not an Internet connection. I counter my wife's objections by explaining it's for work and kiss her on the forehead on my way out the door.

My
car is covered in several feet of snow when I reach the parking lot. After
quickly weighing the costs and benefits of my two options, I head off on foot toward a bar I heard may be open a few blocks away.

In
between high-stepping through snow higher than my knees and thoughts of how insane my actions are, I begin to wonder how
people used to consume sports before every game was on TV and before we carried
all the information available to mankind in our front pockets.

How did they keep up with everything? How could they manage to wait a week until the Sporting News arrived or the local paper ran the league-wide stats?

I cant even wait until the next morning to see the stats, and struggle to remember what life was like before the Red Zone Channel or DirecTV.

I imagine my future
children teasing me about having to actually change the channel myself and wait
for highlights to come on at halftime, the same way I joke with my dad about
having to listen to Cardinals games on the radio when he was a kid.

But I also wonder if being a sports fan was in some ways better back then.

Was
it better we didn't know Mickey Mantle's every misstep and the depths of
his alcohol consumption? His exploits away from the field didn't matter as long
as the words passing through the speakers continued to paint the picture of a
hero.

Would
it be better if we could look at Rob Gronkowski the same way and see nothing of
him dancing topless on stage or body slamming his friends while a cast
protects his broken left forearm? All those things do is take away from the picture of the conquering hero we see each Sunday.

There's something to be said for that kind of innocence, back when you could just enjoy the games and leave the gossip to the tabloids.

I see
nothing but darkness as I near what was billed as my promised land. The
bar is closed, but my phone finally finds a few bars as I turn to head home.
I put my numb fingers on the screen and begin to scroll through box scores and
headlines.

I
speed past the gossip and scandalous stories about steroids and attempt to
pull up a few highlights. I need the hard stuff.

The
connection fails.

My
mind drifts once again on the journey home as I try to envision the box scores I managed to digest come to life.

There
is no obnoxious music playing in the background of my mind. No silly
catchphrases, talking heads arguing about what it all means or loud graphics
taking away from the product.

The
lights may have been dim and plenty of LeBron James' shots probably hit rim that night, but I see only lights glimmering against the freshly waxed hardwood and hear only the sound of the ball cleanly passing through the net.

I
don't know if I could live like this every day, but
for one night, everything was perfect.